


the thoughts that haunt us

by Azaphod



Series: in the family of things [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Body Horror, Communication, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Other, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azaphod/pseuds/Azaphod
Summary: “I’ve been-I’ve been trying to accept--this.” he flails an arm between them, sweeping through the air with a touch of that frantic energy from before. “I want this, I do. I love you, of course,of course. I just...”The arm Martin has slung loosely around his waist tightens briefly, then goes lax. Martin frowns slightly, “You just what?”“Do you ever feel like something is waiting for you?”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: in the family of things [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881805
Comments: 13
Kudos: 81





	the thoughts that haunt us

**Author's Note:**

> this fic takes place a few weeks after unmooring, and also hello! i have another fic centered around daisy in the works (though im taking a short break to write some original stuff) and also i was maybe thinking of doing some short first meetings from this universe? like tim & sasha and jon & tim, maybe even jon & daisy? 
> 
> we'll see! also remember to check the warnings.

The door before him is closed.

It is plain, brown in color. The doorknob is worn with use and there’s even an opening for an old skeleton key lock underneath it, but otherwise, unremarkable. It is cool to the touch as his hand grasps the handle and turns. 

Jon is in his grandmother's study. It is a well organized space; two great bookshelves bracket the walls and a muted, yet tasteful painting hangs in between the dull grey and brown tones. He can’t seem to look too closely at it though, can’t seem to get the image to settle in his mind. There is a sharp intricately carved table in the center of the room, for she was-- _is_ a woman of knowledge and she would not settle for being anything but the eye of the storm. 

She doesn’t sit in the chair now, she stands behind that table, because it makes her appear taller, sharper, in control. She stares down from her rigid perch, cool and much sterner then memory serves. 

But that doesn't matter now. 

Jon instinctively straightens his spine, and stills his hands where they had just been fidgeting uselessly. He is small, and he looks up to her because she is all there is to look to, the sun to his earthly orbit.

“Oh, Jonathan. Look what’s happened now.”

He watches in horror as spindly limbs curl out from behind her, thin and long, one by one, until they drape gracefully over his grandmother, gently caressing her clothes. The table creaks ominously, and minute, splintering cracks appear in the woodwork, fractaling spiderwebs. 

"I warned you," she says, and there is no disdain in her voice, just resignation. “and now the spider sees you.”

He opens his mouth to cry out, to voice his confusion--

\--and all at once he realizes how cold he is. How empty, how much of him is _missing_ ; it's as if a hollow has been carved out of his chest and filled with inky nothingness--but there is something, a sticky, cloying film that weaves over the hole in his chest and tightens, until he can no longer breathe without choking on cobwebs.

His hands come up, grasping futilely for something he cannot find. He gasps, curling inward. He hears his grandmother step forward and feels her run a hand through his hair. It is an empty gesture of affection, her fingers are sharp and _many_. He screws his eyes shut and chokes.

When he finally rights himself--after heaving and coughing until he could breathe again, once the presence above him had subsided--the world has changed around him. Like an actor upon the grand stage, the pieces fall into place; he is in another office, this time the surroundings are plain. Filing cabinets, and computers, and coffee stained papers. The fluorescent lights overhead the buzz and burn his eyes. 

Jon swallows back the rest of his tears, though the terrible ache does not dissipate. If anything, it worsens.

There is sweat dripping down his face, collecting under his chin and his mind is suddenly filled with a frantic fear. He surges forth and starts ripping through the cabinets, finding them mundane or empty but he doesn't stop. He upends a pile of folders and knocks a pencil case to the floor, and all the while he does not think of anything besides _get it back, get it back, get it back--_

"Oh, hello Jon.” a voice chimes, equal parts amused and dangerous. “May I help you with something?" 

Jon reels back, his teeth bared in a snarl that feels unhinged even to himself, but he doesn't stop. He doesn't stop as he rounds to face the man with a mouth full of false pleasantries and eyes that are not his own. He doesn’t stop as he lashes out with a clawed hand, thoughtless and sloppy with the intention to _hurt--_ no hesitation. 

But the spiders’ web has other ideas.

His arm hangs in the air mid swing. He tries to move but silvery little lines hold his body taunt, spiraling down from the darkness of the ceiling. His grandmother sighs again, as eight creeping legs draw spiders’ silk around her body until she is cloaked in white. _The spider sees you now._

“My dear Archivist, _honestly_ , if you wanted something all you had to do was ask." Elias tsks.

He struggles against his invisible bonds, _"Give it back to me_." 

Elias’ smile curls ever wider. He walks closer and closer, until Jon feels his breath warm against his skin. He growls and Elias raises an eyebrow.

He pulls away with deliberate slowness, Jon tries to tilt his head to follow the movement, burning with the need to keep him in sight at all times. Elias rights a pencil holder, and starts collecting the fallen papers with an attitude that implied he had all the time in the world. 

“You’ve certainly made a mess of things, haven’t you?”

When he turns back to Jon, his face has fallen away. He has no mouth or nose or eyebrows, skin has smoothed over everything and in its place there are just eyes, everywhere; bulging and staring and watching; blinking with languid pride. 

“I think you’ll find that _you_ belong to me now.” the monster croons. 

The room darkens, the walls falling away and taking the mundanity of the space with it. In the blink of the eye he is surrounded by a sickening void, and from that void, _eyes_. They blink, lazily and quick, multicolored, but all staring into the root of him. 

His heart hammers in his chest, he stops breathing. He tries to recoil as _something_ touches him in the darkness. Skimming over that gaping ache in his chest and pushing _inside_ \--something slimy and grotesque and claiming, staining him with its vile. He feels it reach into his skin and slide alongside his heart, crawling and reaching and _taking_. 

His scream doesn’t make it past his lips before the rest of reality gives out beneath him and he is falling, and he keeps falling, and it might never stop--

He hits the ground, and all the bones in his body shatter. But only for a moment, and then he is knit back together, sobbing and gasping--and _relieved_ to be alone.

"Jon?"

He flinches and he whips around wildly, his vision fading in and out, and then finally, focusing.

It's Martin, trembling and frightened, but present before him nonetheless. His eyes land on Jon and he's holding his skin in a tender, familiar embrace. 

He doesn't stop to look around, he simply launches himself into the man, letting the skin settle between them to soothe his frantic heart. He nearly sobs in relief, having them both clutched tightly in his arms. Martin’s hand is cold and shaking, but he brings it up to card through Jon’s hair. He is safe, he is _safe_. 

If he had the thought to check, he would have seen the washed out grey walls, the exposed piping that creaked the tune of a hollow beast. He would have seen the fog around Martin and he would have felt the chill, the cloying death. 

But he didn't look. He burrows in the shelter of Martin's arms even as they grow cold around him. Martin retracts from him softly, cruelly, leeching the warmth from his body. He leaves the skin pressed up against Jon's heart, and offers him an empty smile.

"Don't follow me, okay?" Martin says, and his voice echoes infinitely down those horrid corridors, toneless and forsaken. “I don’t need you.”

 _No_ , Jon thinks wildly, reaching out to stop him, and Martin’s form warps, dispersing with the wisping trails of fog he catches between his fingers. 

The corridor is empty, desolate. He is alone with only the skin in his hands--his skin. Ripped and torn apart by savage claws, spattered in blood, barely held together by the shambles of sinewy flesh. Before his eyes it crumbles into tatters, curling in on itself as if it had gone putrid and rotten to its core. _No, no, no--_

He stumbles backward and feels hot breath against his neck, the shuddering moan of something monstrous. 

He turns around, achingly slow and screaming against it in his mind, but his body moves all the same, pulled on strings. The creature is inches from his face, the entire right side of its face concave, melted flesh, muscle and bone. It all drips down the thing’s jaw, where it bares glimmering teeth, already pink and red with blood. He hears the wet sound of flesh sloughing off its stomach and flanks, but dares not look.

Jon meets the creature’s eye, but even that is wrong. It’s brown, a horribly familiar shade of brown, with just a slight hint of red surrounding the blown out pupil. It wails again, its breath billowing his hair gently and the smell is horrific; death and meat and blood and as the scream courses through it, all over its body wiggling spheres worm their ways to the surface of its skin and breach, blinking wetly in the cold air, and the eyes turn their gaze to him.

It bends, until its maw is right by his ear. He can feel countless eyelashes flush against his cheek. 

“ _You’re still mine, Archivist_.” it whispers.

It surges in a shock of movement that he is helpless to stop, and as its jaws snap his body in half, the only thing he can think is: _It sounded like Daisy_.

\--

Jon comes to the same way he always does, with a bang. 

A shout is already ripped from his chest, and he thrashes on instinct, fighting against the constricting bonds around his body--still too muddled within the dream to realize that they’re just the furs that cover their bed. He bites his tongue in his struggle and his mouth fills with a vile coppery taste. He gags, spitting it down his chin. 

“--Jon? _Jon!_ ” 

There are suddenly hands holding him down, large and a little clammy and nothing like the ones from his dream. A strangled, animalistic howl leaves him, and he fights back more frantically despite the familiarity of it. The hold falters for a second--not enough to escape it--but does nothing to lessen. 

He goes limp, chest heaving. 

Slowly, his vision comes back to him, and he flits his gaze nervously around the room, scanning the innocuous corners of the Safehouse cabin with suspicion. He waits for spiders or eyes to appear and drag him further into the hellish distortions of his mind, but no such things happen. There is only the quiet tilt of the boat and turn of the waves, the gentle lamplight bathing the room in muted yellow. 

He is released hesitantly, and he slumps further back into the bed, his breath escaping him in a shallow wheeze that catches in his throat; he coughs, grimacing at the taste of blood. As if on cue a bottle of water is held out in front of him and he finally turns his gaze sideways to Martin. 

The man looks a wreck, though he must look far worse given Martin’s expression. He still has one hand hovering close, trembling with the aftershocks of an abrupt awakening, and Jon feels a pang of guilt, his fingers clenching around the bottle until it crackles under the pressure. 

“ _Hey_ ,” Martin says sharply, voice wavering, knocking his hand gently into Jon's. “it’s okay, just breathe, alright? I’m going to go grab a towel and some bandages.”

Jon frowns at that, but he does as instructed as Martin shuffles off out the door. He drags breath after shaky breath through his lungs, lulling into a quiet stupor as the adrenaline leaves him exhausted. He feels hazy--no, he _burns_ , prickling little pains that dance up and down his arms like little skittering spiders. He jolts and drops the bottle in favor of raking his fingernails down his arms in panic. He doesn’t feel anything there, but if anything the pain doubles down. 

“Oh, love.” he looks up to see Martin staring aghast. 

He darts across the room, setting down his things on the bed, though Jon is barely paying any mind to them, he’s still lost in the phantom pains that ghost over him, and he clasps his hands firmly over his forearms, letting the nails dig in. 

“Spiders.” he says as a way of explanation, his voice a raspy, terrible thing.

Martin's face twists painfully--he’s upset, of course. He's been awoken in the middle of the night to his partner kicking and screaming. But he doesn’t voice any displeasure. He takes Jon's chin in his hand, and uses a towel to wipe away the mess of blood and spit.

“Keep breathing for me, alright?” he murmurs gently, his free hand working a soothing circle into the skin of his shoulder.

Jon tries, throttling his desperate gulps for air into something akin to normal while Martin climbs back into bed with him; maneuvering him until his back is flush with Martin's chest and he feels himself ease into that safety of being held. Martin takes his skinny wrists in his hands, holding his arms out as he dabs gently with the damp towel. Jon hisses and squirms as the fabric catches on the uneven scratches now littering his arms--of course there weren’t _spiders_ , he had simply clawed himself to pieces in his sleep. 

“I’m sorry for holding you down.” Martin says, breaching that stifling quiet, “You weren’t waking up and I didn't want you to hurt yourself anymore.”

“It’s alright.” Jon replies, lightning quick reassurances. “I suppose you returned the favor.”

Martin stills. “Jon.” 

“I am _fine_ , Martin.” 

He tenses up as Martin sighs above him. He really _is_ fine, the nightmares were a commonplace of his strange existence, in the grand scheme of things they seemed a small price to pay. Martin didn’t think so. He kept trying to get Jon to try new things to help; teas, meditation, relaxation--and in one desperate bid to help, _therapy. He_ had firmly shut down that suggestion immediately. 

“I don't need--” Jon starts to snap, hackles raising, but catches himself. He tries again. “...I don’t think you would want to know. There’s a reason they’re nightmares, after all.”

“Oh yes, because I've never been exposed to the strange and horrible.” Martin snarks. “If you couldn’t scare me away with an attempted drowning, then I really doubt your nightmares could do any better.”

The creature of his nightmares flashes to mind in an instant--that grotesque amalgamation--and he shudders. 

“They were memories, but it was distorted, nothing made sense--” Jon forces out the glass shard words and he doesn’t wince as they catch and cut his throat, can’t seem to stop now that the words are coming out faster and faster-- “I saw my grandmother and Elias--and-and _you_. And the _spiders_ \--I had no control, everything was slipping through my fingers and he was touching--and he’s still--”

Martin silences his rambling with a firm squeeze, jolting him back into his body from where he had been floating away. “Easy, that’s enough.”

He stops, his throat closing up around a strangled noise. It is a constant struggle--this _vulnerability_ between them. There will always be that deep rooted part of himself that cries out when he plucks his own insecurities from within and places them in another's hand. He will always wait for the whiplash, trust betrayed, another reason to cover himself in sharp, pointy things like armor.

“I’ve been-I’ve been trying to accept-- _this_.” he flails an arm between them, sweeping through the air with a touch of that frantic energy from before. “I want this, I do. I love you, of course, _of course_. I just...”

The arm Martin has slung loosely around his waist tightens briefly, then goes lax. Martin frowns slightly, “You just what?”

“Do you ever feel like something is waiting for you?” Jon asks in a rush, though he doesn’t wait for a reply. “It’s like something is just hovering under the surface, waiting for me to let my guard down, and when I finally relax into this-this momentary glimpse of good, the teeth close around me and I lose it. 

“Isn’t it _funny_ how much we’ve gotten away with?” Jon continues, “The Tundra, escaping the fog, it all seems too good to be true.”

Martin shifts around him, this time in discomfort.

“Good things happening now don't predict bad things in the future, Jon.” Martin starts, but Jon just scoffs. 

“But this wasn’t some random act of kindness, was it?” he shoots back, “Daisy paid the price for it.”

A draft of cold creeps over him and he shivers. 

“I didn't want that to happen, Jon,” Martin says quietly, and his voice echoes, hollow and infinitely. He’s gone very cold around him.

“I know, it wasn’t your fault.” Jon sighs. He presses his hands into Martin's, wiggling around until he can wind their fingers together, both to be a comfort and anchor. “I'm sorry, I'm being difficult.”

“Can I have that in writing?”

Jon grumbles ominously under his breath, rubbing his thumb gently over Martin’s palm as the color gradually returns to his skin and the cold begins to dissipate. 

“Seriously though, we’re in this together now, alright? Whatever’s out there--whatever you think is hunting you, we can deal with it. And-and I won't let it hurt you." Martin says, shrugging though his words are spoken with sudden conviction. 

"I don't know if you can stop it." 

"We'll see."

A part of him wants to argue the point further. That undying, harsh version of himself that bites down on a problem and refuses to let go, letting it bleed and bleed. He knows the peace they shelter themselves in is a falsehood, fragile and awaiting the right time to crumble out from under them. He knows he could stay up for the rest of the night, watching, waiting. And when that hand of divine punishment came to push him into the ground, he could stand tall for just one brief moment of ‘ _I told you so_.’

But he isn’t that person anymore. 

He frees that cloying, terrified breath from his lungs and chooses instead to settle even further back into his lover’s embrace, greedily drinking in the sensations to drown out the last dredges of fear. Martin goes carefully still, then hugs him just a bit closer. 

“Jon?” he questions softly.

“I was raised by my grandmother, you know.” Jon starts, cringing at his own fumbling non sequitur but Martin simply nods behind him. "My parents died. Nothing unusual or poetic, no drowning at sea. They lived inland, and the mundanity took them, not monsters. I was...too young to remember them."

Martin murmurs a soft apology into his hair, and Jon shrugs his forgiveness.

“My grandmother would be rolling in her grave if she could see me now.” he muses, something that might’ve been a laugh forcing it’s way unpleasantly to the surface. “She tried very hard to keep me out of trouble.”

“I never would have pinged you as a difficult child.” Martin says. 

“Oh, shut up.” 

“I’m serious! I imagined you as an unending delight.”

“I _am_ a delight, thank you.” Jon huffs. 

Martin quakes with silent laughter, and his hand squeezes tightly to his own seemingly without thought. Jon has always loved openly, it is as simple as breathing. But he learned very, _very_ early on that love can be wielded like a weapon, and when it was twisted and turned, covered in little tacks of barbed wire and razor blades, it _hurt_. 

With Martin though, it was…

“You know I love you.” he rushes out so fast it doesn’t leave his lips as a question, just another statement of truth.

Martin regards him with a floaty sort of smile. “‘Course, love you.”

“You’re tired.” Jon notes, unnecessarily. 

“Yeah. Do you want to try to get some more sleep?” Martin asks, pausing to plant sweet kisses onto the crown of his head, spiraling down to the hinge of his jaw. 

He closes his eyes for a moment and sinks into that feeling of safety. “Would you be upset if I said no?”

“A little, it’s not even five in the morning yet.” Martin yawns, “Let's go sit on the deck then, get some fresh air.”

Jon rises without protest, letting Martin wordlessly shepard him out of bed and through the tiny cabin door, their footsteps creak on soft wooden floors. Martin pauses by the door, then hesitantly wraps Jon's shoulders with his own seal skin. 

Jon blinks. More often then not, it is Martin that keeps his skin. It is his, after all, Jon _gave_ it to him. Though it provides a small comfort now, feeling it whole and undamaged--or at least, the same as it's always been. He flashes Martin a small, grateful smile, and steps out onto the deck.

The cool night sky looks back at him; a void above, not a single star in sight. It is a beautiful mirror of the ocean below, only broken with imperfections from the frothing waves. 

There is enough moonlight to bathe Martin in its soft glow, painting him ethereal, angelic; he is the being that stole the stars from their cradle, hoarding them in the curl of his brow, the bridge of his nose, across all the plains of his shoulders. In a just world he would have a mantle of pale feathers and halos and many thousands of eyes. 

In this world he turns to Jon with a smile that is soft, weary with troubles that will not pass for some time--if ever. But tonight, it is enough. 

The moon winks down at him in agreement. 

**Author's Note:**

> ok, warnings:  
> general nightmare horrors, and HEAVY body horror.  
> a lot of unreality and intentionally confusing aspects.  
> a few mentions of paralysis in which jon cannot move.  
> the non consensual touching is nonsexual in nature, but described as horrible. (martin also holds jon down briefly though apologizes for it)  
> and lastly, there are a few brief mentions of violence, though mostly nongraphic. 
> 
> if you want to skip the nightmare scene you can scroll until the -- break.


End file.
